Taking a great fall

Allegiances to due process crashed into the political reality last week that all of Stan's horses and all of his men, and women, might never be able to put his presidency back together again.

Politics, it appears, won out.

Thrust back into turmoil after fresh reporting in the Boston Globe over the previous weekend, the Senate's attention turned not to action in legislative committees facing a bill-reporting deadline, but back to its own murky leadership situation.

House leaders tried to refrain from piling on, but couldn't help but grumble about how a lack of clear Senate leadership, in their opinion, was sowing confusion at a critical juncture for the Legislature's policy journey. And Gov. Charlie Baker took the time out of the spotlight to speak to business leaders and tease a major expansion of MassMutual, which plans to use $46 million in tax incentives to add thousands of jobs and a footprint in Boston.

Despite claims of a firewall, Sen. Stan Rosenberg, it is now alleged, gave his estranged husband Bryon Hefner, who has been accused of sexually harassing men working on Beacon Hill and meddling in Senate affairs, access to his official email.

That meant another retreat behind closed-doors for Democrats almost two months to the day after Rosenberg stepped down as Senate president.

In December, Democrats held a dramatic eight-hour caucus where they decided to launch a formal Ethics Committee investigation into Rosenberg and make Harriette Chandler acting president. This time, the meeting was shorter and the decision was made to remove the word "acting" from Chandler's title, a clear message that Rosenberg will not return to the presidency this year, and probably ever.

Chandler and others described the move as one intended to bring stability to the Senate at a time when the focus, they said, needs to be squarely on jump-starting their legislative agenda.

"We've got to get going here," she said.

Six months and counting until the end of formal sessions.

The decision, however, was not made easily by some.

"I hate to think that he might be entirely innocent and yet thrown out of the job. That would disturb me. I would have felt like I quailed due to the pressures of the moment and I don't want to believe that I would do that. Still, it looks difficult," Sen. Michael Barrett, D-Lexington, said.

But while Rosenberg has consistently defended the integrity of his office, the question for many senators ceased being whether Rosenberg knew of his husband's exploits, or allowed him to influence Senate decision-making, but rather whether Rosenberg failed to keep the promise of a firewall between Hefner and the Senate.

"I believe that the wall that was said to be in place wasn't in place, and I think having that wall in this situation was critical to the workings of the Senate. The fact that it wasn't in place or has at least been breached has led to the situation now where we're talking about this rather than the opioid epidemic, transportation, education, mental health. So it's time to move," Quincy Democratic Sen. John Keenan said.

So it's Chandler for 2018, and an open election after that.

Rumors swirled about deals being cut and alliances formed, but the more-apparent truth was that none of four -- or is it five? -- openly ambitious candidates to succeed Chandler could put together by Feb. 7 the 21 votes needed to be the next Senate president, or this might be a very different column.

So is it four or five Democrats vying for the presidency?

Sens. Sal DiDomenico of Everett, Eileen Donoghue of Lowell and Karen Spilka of Ashland have been public about their interest in the post, and Sen. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow emerged last week as a fourth contender when he started dialing around to colleagues.

And then there's Sen. Mark Montigny, whose name Chandler casually dropped in a conversation with reporters as "being open" to the idea of becoming the next president, much to the New Bedford Democrat's chagrin.

Forceful denials from Montigny about being a "declared candidate" quickly melted away into an admission that he would entertain the notion if the stars align, but he said he has not talked to a single senator to ask for their vote.

"It's just not some raw ambition of mine," Montigny said. His first priority? "I think the Senate needs to be put back together."

Add all five together and their home territories span nearly every region of the state. The volume of presidential vote-wrangling operations may get turned down in the immediate aftermath of last week, but it's unlikely to be put on mute and will continue to provide a constant hum in the background this year as lawmakers attempt to get back to work -- something a solitary Rosenberg might appreciate right about now, no matter how disappointed he is that the president's office is slipping further away.

The Ethics Committee investigation will also proceed as planned, threatening at any moment to drop another grenade in the Senate's lap.

Special Senate investigators aren't the only ones asking the question of who knew what when.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission said its suitability review of Wynn Resorts will "aggressively continue" even after embattled casino magnate Steve Wynn made their jobs a little easier last week when he agreed to step down as CEO of the company he founded amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

The company, which is in the middle of building a $2.4 billion casino in Everett, has to be hoping that Wynn's resignation will keep the regulatory wolves at bay, but Massachusetts still wants to know how far up the ladder the sexual harassment coverup might have gone.

Baker has largely deferred the decision-making with regard to the future of Wynn Boston Harbor to the Gaming Commission, but he has been less hands-off with the Cannabis Control Commission.

Baker's budget office wrote a letter to the CCC warning them about the dangers of trying to run before you can walk. The governor expressed his concerns that the marijuana regulators, by embracing pot cafes, delivery services and other "ancillary" businesses, are pushing too hard, too fast to create a fully developed market before they've nailed the basics of retail marijuana.

The budget office letter was followed up Feb. 9 with another from his energy secretariat urging caps on energy consumption for marijuana cultivators so that the state's carbon emission reduction and energy efficiency goals don't go up in smoke.

The governor's intrusion into the independent commission's process was not welcomed by all.

"That letter was a reminder of who's your daddy, OK? 'We are your daddy, we control your money...' that's what that letter was about," said Horace Small, an appointee of the attorney general to the Cannabis Advisory Board. "Sometimes adolescents have to talk back to their parents and I think this is what we're trying to do today."

Sometimes adolescents also post things on social media that they shouldn't. Rep. Keiko Orrall is certainly not an adolescent, but it's hard not to wonder why the Republican National Committeewoman decided the morning of Feb. 9 to delete every Tweet she ever posted.

The Twitter expungement came a day after the News Service reported that Orrall was giving serious consideration to a statewide bid for treasurer. Maybe it's a coincidence. Or maybe not.